I'm here for your blood

Sorry for not writing for a long time; this has been due to a mixture of sampling trips, tiredness and laziness on my part. Anyhow, before going into more detail on my sampling trips, I figured I’d give a few more general impressions.

Indonesia is not actually the third world. I can tell this because their stores sell Coke Zero. Nowhere truly third world ever sells diet anything. Though, it’s also odd because in the small, isolated villages I sample in, one can buy Sprite and Strawberry Fanta but not Coca-Cola. It’s perhaps the only place I’ve been except deep in the Congo where one can’t buy Coke. Also the only flavor of Fanta I’ve found in the entire country is Strawberry, which is definitely not the best flavor of Fanta. I had to choke down 1.5L of the stuff to get my sharps container.

Indonesia does, however, have several quirks. For one, despite having large tubs of water (from which one scoops water out to shower or “flush” the toilet) above/next to their toilets, they have neither flush toilets nor actual running water showers. They’re 95% of the way to them, but they seem not to care. Why?

A bigger concern, though, is their lack of TP. In general, one is expected to wipe with one’s left hand then rinse it off by scooping water out of the vat of water next to the tub. And then one is expected to do everything else with one’s right hand. Why waste an entire hand on wiping? You could use both hands socially, which would be especially nice as you also generally are expected to eat and serve yourself with your hands---which makes it hard if you’re a lefty to avoid a major faux pas of sticking your left hand into the dish. The store in Ketapang even sells toilet paper. They don’t have a large stock, but clearly it’s possible to get it here. These people, while relatively poor, own mopeds, nice cell phones and apparently buy diet sodas---they could afford the 17 cents a roll of TP costs! I understand some things are just cultural differences, but this just seems inefficient.

Speaking of odd, while most people own chairs, tables and many even own couches (all of which are nasty 70s-looking red monstrosities), they do almost everything on the floor---eat, entertain, etc. My legs are very sore from trying to sit Indian-style so much, especially after my futsal injury (I bent my left knee forward). They could have TP if they wanted, they do have sitting apparatuses and they also have silverware (at least I think most do); why not use them? I don’t get it. They also strictly forbid shoes in their homes, but they bring their motorcycles in at night (and their homes are full of smoke all the time). Heh.

A timely note: there are many ethnic Chinese here; they came about 100-150 years ago and fulfill the roles that the Indians fulfill in Uganda or the Jews fulfilled in medieval Europe. There are also some simmering tensions between them and the various Indonesian ethnicities like in those other places, though mostly people seem to get along quite well and be very opening. In any case, the way that this impacts me is that Andy’s house is in a relatively nice neighborhood in Ketapang (he’s paying $400/year in rent which is at least twice what he’d probably pay for the same house if he were Indonesian) and so we are surrounded by ethnic Chinese people. This would be great except that they blare the worst music every morning around 7am. Let’s just say that I’d rather have a dozen roosters placed in my bedroom at 7.

Our little trash heap for our neighborhood has been the site of a soap opera for me. There are, alternatively, people, dogs, cats, chickens and goats picking through the trash. I’m still trying to work out the hierarchy between them all.

So I’ve spent most of the last week sampling or traveling to sample. The day before I was supposed to leave, my counterpart student (a student from an Indonesian university who I am supposed to pay and give academic credit to ideally for helping me but sometimes it works out that you have to just drag them along) sent me a text message saying he wouldn’t be coming with me and good luck Sir. Great. Now he gave off the impression of being a pretty boy so in many ways this was a good thing, but still it was a big setback---I can’t go to these villages alone saying “I want blood” or “I need blood” (two of the few Indonesian phrases I know---I also know “I take dog blood now”) and expect anything but being burnt at the stake. So I scrambled and thanks to the help of an Eli here, I found someone who is quite good. But still---he f*ed me over by text! It’s like breaking up with someone by Post-It…

So after a couple days’ delay, I got going. We rode our mopeds out to the first village; about a 3 hour drive given road conditions. The main road is pretty good (by third world standards), but the side roads can be treacherous. Imagine playing a game that was a mixture of bull riding (for obvious reasons), slalom (dodging various particularly large rocks, potholes, missing bridge elements, mud mountains often while going down San Fran-like gradients), chess (you have to plan at least 5 moves in advance) and motocross---then imagine doing it with a 30 kg bag strapped precariously behind you and another 20 kg bag on your back (pushing you into an uncomfortable almost standing position) AND doing so just after a rain has slickened the course and added up to 2 foot puddles. You’ll start to get the picture. The bridges were the most interesting part---off the main road, they were composed of two long planks spanning the distance with some cross beams at 90 degree angles. Pretty normal stuff, except most bridges were missing some/several of their cross beams. So the only way to cross was by going balance-beam style on the long planks that span the distance, looking down at the rushing water beneath. Let’s just say that driving off the main road here has a steep learning curve. Driving on the main road does as well, but for different reasons. Not only are there all manner of vehicle/farm animal on the road, but directionality of lanes is only followed sometimes. Frequently you’ll find yourself with people going the opposite direction as you on both sides of you if it makes it easier for one of them.

This pales in comparison, though, to the second major sampling trip I took. It wasn’t that the roads were bad, but the directions were quite interesting. First we drove 85km to visit the Western doctor who runs an NGO here. We got some phone numbers and names from her employees and called to make inquiries as to the road condition. We decided to take a boat instead. So we drove another 20 km to a dock area, found a person to watch our bikes and found another person to barter with over the boats. We got in a little speedboat and traveled upriver. We got let out at a dock and carried our bags up a hill to a snack bar on the road. We made friends with the people there and then got their help flagging down a passing truck. We piled ourselves and our things in the back. Then they wanted to extort us, so we ended up paying $6 to go now instead of “sometime later”. We went to the main village. We walked to the head of the village’s house. We made friends with him. Then, we (along with one of his sons as a pseudo-guide) started sampling. The next day, repeat approximately the same thing to go to another village along the river.

We’ve been staying with the village leaders in each place. So at least it’s the nicest house in the village, but still has generally not been the Hilton. Though I have gotten to watch several local football games, some Indonesian soaps and one Oprah on TV during this time. I thought maybe the Oprah was just some weird thing going on, but later I heard my employee and a different village leader talking about Oprah. We generally have managed to find small pads to sleep on, though in one place we slept on the floor (and there was no place to put up a mosquito net). So that night I didn’t get to sleep until 4am from a mixture of discomfort at the sleeping arrangement and the itchiness of a couple dozen mosquito bites. Lately though I’ve been really tired---I even fell asleep at 7:15pm at the last place.

The actual sampling involves going house-to-house (after getting permission from the village head). We ask to come in, invariably get permission and sit on the floor with the man of the house and frequently a couple of his friends or sons and/or his wife. We smile, exchange pleasantries, and then my employee (Deddy) explains why we’re there. Reactions are quite varied; most people are at least somewhat interested though some are very afraid of even tiny needles. About half the time we get permission and take anywhere from one to eight samples in the house. We ask questions that relate to their history with malaria and their risk factors for getting malaria and I poke them in the finger and get a couple drops of blood for later analysis. Per person it only takes about five minutes. Then we give them soap, shampoo and toothbrushes (I am the Hygiene Fairy---this is what happens when one asks the doctor servicing the area what one should give out) and some candy for children and are on our way again. I tend to get more samples from adult men than any other group (which is a good thing for my research); adult women are a close second. There are some places where the men are wimps though. One that sticks out in my mind is a house with five or six adult guys, a 21-year-old woman and her 4-year-old son. The men were all too afraid of the needle but the woman and her son participated. I’m a little worried about my results because I don’t think this is the high malaria transmission season, though in a couple villages we did find people who were sick with malaria. Really only 2 or 3 of the 5 villages visited so far had a good number of mosquitoes, though.

Meal times reinforce the sharp gender disparity. Deddy and I usually eat with the village leader. It is just the three of us. The women serve us and then sit on the other side of the room while we eat. When we’re done, the cats come and lick our plates clean (they let their cats get away with everything. It’s a nation of cat people. They treat their dogs like crap and some of them eat them). There are also sharp distinctions in smoking; basically every male over age 14 smokes but I have not even once seen a woman smoke here. I asked Deddy and he says no Indonesian women smoke. Probably overstated, but not by much.

In the villages we usually have to bathe in a river or drainage ditch. For all this is a mostly Muslim place, they are remarkably willing to allow expedience to take over frequently. People of bot genders will go down to their underwear to bathe as anyone walks by.

At this point I’ve collected 155 samples from 5 villages. I am trying to hit 3 more before I’m done. I’ll try to post more frequently over the next couple weeks, though probably not again for 5 or 6 days. I’ll try to upload a few photos later today though if I can.

Finally in "the field"-ish

After an uneventful flight, I landed in Pontianak, West Kalimantan's provincial capital which straddles the equator. I went straight to the hotel and after dinner fell asleep, waking up not knowing which hemisphere I was in (how's that for a hangover story, though I wasn't hungover?). As labor is cheap, by the way, my hotel had an overabundance. It was actually a bit intimidating since any time I left my room, there were five or so people asking what they could do to help me.

Meetings an the local university the next day went well. It was much cooler than Jakarta. Since it's on the equator, "dry" season is a very relative term as it's always pretty rainy and so it was pretty cool since it had just rained there. While it was still a city, it was also much more open and laid back in a good way than Jakarta. Chickens, goats and various other animals roamed the streets and I felt like I was back in the good, not over-urbanized part of the developing world. I also visited the equator and checked in with the Northern Hemisphere and found out tickets by boat or plane to Ketapang, my base of operations, would be difficult to obtain because of the impending Indonesian Independence Day. Somehow my counterpart (a local university student I pay and take along with me and put on publications in return for his local expertise, assistance planning things out, etc; they are required by law but also should be genuinely helpful for my project) managed to find me an economy ticket on the boat to Ketapang on Tuesday. I'm not sure what he did to get it because he refused my money to pay for it, saying he had bartered for it.


On Tuesday, despite my protestations (in Bahasa Indonesia---he should have understood), my taxi driver erroneously took me to the airport. However, we had time for him to realize his error
and make it back to the port in town though I got pretty worried. He was pretty embarrassed by it too, so my ride was quite cheap. The 8 hour boat ride reminded me of how much taller I am than almost all Indonesians. The space between seats was not large enough for my femur so it was pretty uncomfortable. The people next to me were very nice though and the seas were calm, so between trying to talk to the people next to me and sleeping for a few hours, I was able to pass the time pretty well.


Ketapang seems pretty nice. Fairly small, but certainly more than just a village. Right after arriving I went with my advisor to play futsal with some locals. I did pretty well, scoring 2 goals and serving 3 assists (to get in on all 5 of our goals) as well as preventing some goals. However, it was ultimately in a losing effort. I'm also staying in a house my advisor is renting, so it keeps things pretty cheap. It's fairly basic with standard Indonesian squat toilet without a flusher and shower=vat of water you scoop water from and pour over you as well as just a mat on the floor to sleep on, but it's nice to have a "home" and it's much more comfortable than many places I've stayed. And it at least has T.P. unlike most of the toilets (which are all squat toilets except at nice hotels) here.

I will try to post a couple pics of the equator and stuff in a separate post since the internet is pretty slow.

Also, as we have no internet at home, I will probably be posting much less for the next 5-6 weeks or so.

Highlights of the Trip Thus Far

1. Meeting my advisor for an "early dinner" with "little alcohol" so we'd both be functional the next day. We figured we'd save the real fun until Thursday night. Then starting dinner at 9:30pm in a jazz club after having had 3 beers each waiting for his contact to meet us, splitting a *very* nice (and *very* expensive) bottle of Pinot Noir (provided by my advisor) and ending with double shots of Jack Daniels on the rocks and several clove cigarettes each before heading back sometime around midnight. He did not meet me for breakfast at 7am like we had agreed on... Good conversation though. Thanks for the awesome night, though less so for the next morning.

2. Getting hit by a car while walking with my advisor. It hit my arm, sending the box of mango juice I was holding flying and making quite a noise when the mirror snapped back. I hardly felt anything, though and so could be bad-ass in front of everyone by just picking up my juice and continuing on. The mark was gone by the evening. The minivan never even stopped.

3. Riding ojaks. Yeah, they're dangerous and I'm generally using cabbies, but in rush hour it takes 1/3rd as long to get across town and is so much more fun. They even have helmets for their passengers here. Crazy.

4. Watching the sunrise over a hazy Jakarta.

5. Walking aimlessly around the city Monday evening.

6. Getting hit on by 3 very conservatively dressed teenage Muslim girls waiting in the Immigration Office. I totally tried to avoid it (I don't want to get anyone, including myself, in trouble) by ignoring their giggles and looks, but then one of them struck up a conversation with me. I didn't really flirt back, but it was kind of funny. I could see that before I came in, they were playing the "what will you name your kid" game. None of the names looked like a name I'd want my kid named...

7. Watching Deal or No Deal, Indonesia version, in the Immigration Office. The woman wasn't even upset when she opened the 400 million case. She wound up knocking the top value (4 billion) off as the third case---leaving only the 2 lowest amounts left (500 and 1000). And, to add insult to injury, her case wound up to be the 500 rupiah. Enjoy your nickel, dumbass.

8. Realizing that while Law & Order isn't always on in Indonesia, apparently Mythbusters is.

9. Realizing that I may eventually actually get into the forest to do research.

Office of Immigration

So I go to RISTEK yesterday morning bright and early and they inform me I have to go to a million different places (5?) scattered across Jakarta with various documentation. Being a smart traveler, I already have copies of most everything, though I didn't realize I'd need 12 (!) more passport photos (4x6 cm with a RED BACKGROUND required) in addition to the 8 I had already submitted. I also needed copies of the visa stamps and exit cards they'd given me at the airport. So I head back to my hotel and make some copies and get the photos. Then I head to the Immigration Office. It is tucked into a back corner of central Jakarta in a fairly nondescript building on a very nondescript street. My taxi, even with the address, has lots of problems finding it and eventually lets me out so I can find it on foot. I hand the letter addresses to them to various people, watch them point and eventually find it.

The first floor is a madhouse. A few windows, lots of people, long lines, no signs in English. I find someone who looks knowledgeable and show them my paper. They point me upstairs and show me three fingers. I go to the third floor. More windows but no lines; just a bunch of haggard-looking people in chairs in the middle of the room. I go to the first window and hand them my paper (all this time trying out Indonesian greetings and phrases of exasperation). They point me to another window. I go to this window. The man talks to me in Bahasa Indonesia. I can tell from his voice when I'm getting warmer or colder. Eventually he gets from me everything he wants, hands me an application form and points me to the room marked FOTOCOPY. I go to the room unsure of why (I already have photocopies of everything). A woman takes my paperwork and hands it to a man in the back. She also takes 10,000 rupiah. He motions me in and eventually I realize he wants my address. I give it to him. No, Jakarta address. Ok. Eventually the form is filled out. He hands it to me and points me back to the window. I realize my departure card is missing. We find it under his desk. Go back to the window. They're on lunch break. Guy takes my paperwork anyway and tells me it is incompletely filled out (by pointing). I figure out, through trial and error punctuated by his positive or negative intonation, what to fill out where. He tells me to come back in an hour, after lunch. I go outside and buy some street food (<$1 lunch).

Come back in an hour later. Now they're praying. Thirty minutes later, I go back to the window. He motions me back to my seat. Thirty minutes later he waves me up. He picks up my folder from where I'd left it, hands it to another man who motions for me to come around to his desk, and the man initials two of the pages of my application and hands it to me. He motions me across the hall, to another window. I drop the paperwork at that window. A man takes it to a desk behind the window. Forty-five minutes later he motions for me. They've rearranged the papers and marked "USED" on my visa. He motions me back to the first window. I drop the paperwork off there. Thirty minutes later he calls me up again. The papers have one more stamp on them. They motion me toward a back door and try to intimate taking the stairs. Eventually one person from the back yells out, "Basement! Mr. John!"

I walk through the door and down the stairs. The last flight of stairs to the basement has open, cracked stairs, tons of water damage, no light and broken down office furniture piled high. Hmm, this can't be right. Go to the second floor. Open the door and say "Mr John?" to the first person I find. He points toward the stairs. Go to the first floor. Open the door into some kind of office and ask "Mr John?" to the first person I see. He points to the stairs. Hmmm. Go into the basement. It has high stacks of very old files and cobwebs. Are these the files of people killed by Suharto's regime? Should I start my own investigation? What's going on? Creeped out, I go back to the first floor. Ah, there's a small doorway tucked next to the stairs leading to a very plain office with a lot of red folders, similar to the one my paperwork is in. Seeing someone, I ask "Mr. John?" He smiles and answers affirmatively. I sit on the chair and hand him the folder. He looks at the paperwork briefly and initials one of the pages. He hands it back and motions me back toward the stairs. I go back to the first window and drop off the paperwork. Twenty minutes later, I am motioned to take it back across to a third window in the room. I drop it off there. The guys in that room are watching TV. After forty-five minutes, they call me back, hand me back the paperwork and motion me back to the first window. I drop it off there and the man, looking at his watch, intimates that I should come back tomorrow.

Day one of bureaucracy done. Now it's time to start Day Two of bureaucracy. Fun. Back to the Immigration Ministry with me.

Welcome to Indonesia!

My second flight was much like the first; the carry-on smuggler game, good seafood, etc, though this one had the cool in-flight entertainment system where each seat had its own tv screen and lots of entertainment choices, though not as many as on Emirates Air (why we got that on the shorter flight and not the longer one is beyond me). We got in just before 1pm and walked off the plane to a blast of humidity and a large sign proclaiming, "Welcome to Indonesia. DEATH PENALTY FOR DRUG TRAFFICKERS!" (emphasis theirs) This message was also on my customs declaration form (guess you shouldn't list the cocaine) and on several other billboards in the airport, some punctuated with an image of a gun, in case you weren't sure of the method of execution. I got through customs pretty easily and made it through the gauntlet to get cash, buy a soda (so I'd have small denominations) and hail a taxi with only having my cart fall over under its own weight once.

I got in to my hotel, Atlet Century Park, after going along a toll road that reminded me I was back in the developing world. Who needs traffic laws? My cabbie did just fine without use of the "lane concept" as painted onto the road.

The hotel is in relatively swanky southwest Jakarta, near a couple malls, an FX "fun bureau" which has an unclear purpose to me or Andy (it's not as obviously prostitution as it sounds), a 24-hour McDonald's drive-thru, a KFC, a Starbucks, a Cold Stone Creamery (!) and several other Western stores. Across the street from the hotel is mini golf and the hotel has a nice pool and rec area. The malls are mostly electronics stores (including an Apple store). Cool phones are pretty cheap here. Of course, the sidewalks, where they exist, often have huge holes in them leading down into sewage and other reminders we're not in Kansas anymore. As a biologist, so, so far I've seen on the streets: a young macaque in a vest riding a skateboard, 3 urban free-range goats, 2 stray dogs and 1 very skinny pregnant cat.

Yesterday I went to government offices. I should point out here that the cabbies not only don't speak English (most of them at least don't) but also tend not to know where they're going. Printed addresses + pointing on a map help, but they still usually have to triangulate and ask for directions several times. I have gotten to see a lot of Jakarta though.

Anyway, I started at the foreign researcher coordination group (RISTEK) from where they sent me with paperwork to a couple other places. I will try to blog about the Immigration Ministry and last night shortly, but now I have to go to breakfast.

Trust fund babies

Jesus Christ the [humanities] grad students sitting at the next table are annoying. I can't help overhearing their inane chatter about all the Westins they've stayed at, East Asian massage etiquette and their daddy's friends' vinyards in New Zealand. And dude, your thought of maybe bungee jumping sometime does not make you bad-ass. I can't wait to get on my next flight...

Why is blogger.com suggesting "scooters, vacation, fall" as possible labels for this post? Foreshadowing? Time to learn more Bahasa Indonesia. Haven't found "Could you hold this stray dog's leg like this to make the cephalic vein more prominent so I can draw blood from it?" yet. Will keep looking.